Left Photo: Xuemei Sun and 3-year-old daughter Sarah were a couple of about 500 attendees at the annual FBC dinner “To Ruston With Love.”
Right Photo: A crowd fills the Ruston Civic Center to feast on the turkey dinner provided by First Baptist Church. To see more pictures from the event, turn to pages 8A and 9A.

An estimated 500 hungry mouths filled the Ruston Civic Center last week for a community wide Thanksgiving dinner.

The 20th annual event, known as “To Ruston With Love,” is hosted by First Baptist Church of Ruston and provides a free meal to anyone in the community who wants to come out. This year’s menu featured more than 50 turkeys, sweet potato casserole, various sides and numerous desserts.

“The desserts are made by church members, and there were probably a combination of 100 of them,” FBC Church hostess Sylvia Roseberry said. “The sweet potato casserole was made from scratch, and it took a couple of days to prepare in the church.”

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The month of October known as National Breast Cancer Awareness Month has come and gone, but More Than Conquerors Breast Cancer Support Group (MTCBCSG) was busy all month spreading awareness.

The group was busy raising awareness and hoping to reduce the stigma of breast cancer through education on symptoms and treatment. These survivors know that greater knowledge will lead to earlier detection of breast cancer, which is associated with higher long-term survival rates.

Alana Belton brought a message of hope to the students of Grambling State University as she spoke at a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration on Monday.

“It’s not enough for us to keep dreaming, we have to start living,” Belton told more than 200 in the audience.

Joining the students were prominent leaders in the Ruston and Grambling communities. GSU students included representatives from the university’s Favrot Student Union Board, Greek organizations and the GSU Royal Court.

It all started with a pair of rabbits. Now, depending on the holiday, the front yard of Jo Ann Cardwell’s white frame house at 907 N. Trenton St. near downtown Ruston is full of pumpkins, turkeys or Santa Claus arriving in a helicopter.

“I’ve always decorated, even if it wasn’t but a few sticks I stuck in the ground,” Cardwell said.

But over the years, as she’s added more inflatables and other decorations that light up, Cardwell’s yard has become a popular drive-by holiday attraction. Some people stop to take pictures.